(soft upbeat music) - Kinship care, it's when a child is placed with a relative.

So you have a relative caregiver caring for kin or what we call fictive kin, which may be someone that has a tie to their community or their roots that may not be a blood relative.

- It doesn't just have to be a niece or a nephew, or a cousin, it can be my best friend's child.

It can be somebody in my congregation's cousin that I know and I see every Sunday, and they're in need of caregiving and I'm gonna provide that care.

- Kiera is more like I grew relationship with his family outside of, so yeah, that's more like a kinship with him, like being able to be around family, his family.

- In Black and Brown communities specifically, kinship care is not a new concept.

It's something that has existed even informally for years.

- It's something that we've always done.

In our culture, in our community we don't believe that like children are orphans or they're parentless.

We believe that as a community, you step in.

I myself am a kinship care provider.

My daughter is actually my cousin, and as a family, we step in and we take care of our own.

We take care of our family because we want them raised in the culture.

We want them with that sense of community, sense of belonging and self identity.

- And far too many times, too many instances, we have Black and Brown children that are uprooted from their respective communities.

They are detached from the schools, the churches, you know, the ecosystem that they're used to and they're placed in environments where they may not have a connection to.

This new rule allows the kids to stay situated within their communities with family or family-like settings, and also provide the structure and the funds needed for those kids to get the care that they need.

- He still gonna see his aunties here and there, hang out with his cousins, talk to his dad on a regular basis.

- It might start as foster care, but it quickly turns into kinship because I feel like I wanna know the mom, I wanna know the dad.

I wanna like build a relationship with their family.

You know, like I said, we're not replacing anybody, we're just an extra love.

- There is not a child or not many if that that wouldn't want a connection to their community over going to an unknown home.

- Families come in all shapes and sizes, and Michigan's taking steps to ensure they stay together.

There's something called kinship care.

While the concept isn't new, our state is becoming one of the leaders in the greater national movement to ensure children and the child welfare system have the supports they need to thrive.

Today we talk with people on the inside about what exactly kinship care is, and more importantly, how it's set to impact Michigan families.

(gentle music) Every year, thousands of children are uprooted and placed in foster care.

While it's challenging to know the exact number, the latest national data estimates 369,000 youth sit in America's child welfare system.

In traditional foster care methods, children and teens have often been placed in homes they have no connection to.

And shortages of foster families mean kids may have to move into new communities away from their schools, friends and familiar spaces.

- With everything I believe in my heart and soul, like that's one of the things that I'll get teary about, and this work is just that.

Every child deserves an opportunity to be as close to their roots as they possibly can.

And if they can do that, their chance for success is so much higher.

I call it ACEs, the adverse childhood experiences that a child fights every time we can feed into the good of that.

Maintaining those connections are a vital piece of that.

How can we create less trauma for that child?

If they can stay in their school, that's one space we didn't remove and that's one space they go five days a week.

- [Narrator 1] Brooke Van Prooyen is the community engagement and supports manager for D.A.

Blodgett St. John's, a West Michigan staple and child welfare, which offers supports in areas like foster care, adoption, counseling, and independent living.

Her team is one of many in Michigan who are advocating for an alternative model when it comes to child placement, kinship care.

- It's when a child is placed with a relative.

So you have a relative caregiver caring for kin or what we call fictive kin, which may be someone that has a tie to their community or their roots that may not be a blood relative.

So they can care for that child as we help the family with reunification as the ultimate goal.

- [Narrator 1] The concept centers on the importance of consistency, identity, and stability in kids' lives.

And while it's not new, it has gained significant traction across the nation.

In 2024, Michigan became the first US state to implement separate licensing standards for kin caregivers, opening a new array of resources to people caring for their loved ones.

We reached out to Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services to find out more.

- So the Federal Health and Human Services finalized a new regulation earlier this year that allows a child welfare agency to adopt simpler licensing or approval standards for all kin foster homes, as well as requiring that states provide kin caregivers with the same level of financial assistance that any other foster care provider receives.

So basically in the past, foster care was a format where there was a licensed foster parent that would take in a child whether that person had a connection through blood to that child or not.

And we were able to, of course, provide financial assistance.

Now, there's an easier, more clear path for, again, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, nieces to step up and formally be that kinship care provider and also get the funds needed to ensure the safety and wellbeing and care for that child.

- [Narrator 1] Demetrius Starling is the senior Deputy Director for Michigan's Children's Services Administration.

He says kinship care is becoming the standard when engaging with children and families in the state.

- So we have kin families who are licensed, right?

So 65% of our kids who are placed in foster care are with kin families.

- And when we talk about those impacts of being able to stay in a community that you are familiar in, when it comes to kinship care, what are some of those specific benefits to that child or the children who get to stay with family during what can be a really difficult time?

- We understand that kinship care is best for children and families, and that placing children with kin allows for that maintain family connection, that cultural continuity, familiarity with their systems, comfort, and also reduce trauma.

So outside of the safety assessments, providing financial support and increased placement efforts with family, we also know that it helps with the healing process.

It helps with the reconciliation process from a child or children being ripped away from their homes.

You know, when we have a like-minded community kind of effort where we have boots on the ground, we have people that are best situated to, you know, to not only ensure the diversity and equity is there when it comes to kinship care placements, but also all of our kinship care give us, kinda again, have that ecosystem where they can talk about what's needed to best support the children, their children from their family.

We believe that these kids can grow, and again, you know, reconcile some of that trauma at a much higher and quicker rate.

- Well, I spent a portion of my own childhood in kinship care.

So for me, I have that perspective.

I was part of informal is what it would've been considered.

I was raised in the south and I came and lived with an aunt and uncle in rural Michigan.

In the end now I have my beautiful aunt, my uncle has passed, I have my beautiful mother and my father has passed, but I have both of these people in my life and I have my sister who is my everything, but I have my cousins who are my everything, and I identify with them as my siblings.

To organically look and looking back at research that keeping families together, keeping communities together, if you can do that in smaller systems, that the success rates can be higher, and that has been proven for the kids that are able to maintain those roots and connections versus going into a foster care placement.

The success rates can just be higher for those children.

Their sense of identity, the pieces of that, to know their roots, to be part of their own cultural heritage, those parts are just huge components to who we are as people and who we grow up as, but to be able to have that stability, and the biggest piece of knowing your family's working with you on that, the unknowns, it just eliminates one more unknown for that child.

I just hope if I can support another family the way I love and adore mine, that I think even more could be done.

(children playing) - [Narrator 1] In one West Michigan home, we see this concept in action.

- We've got a big family.

(both chuckling) There's us two and then we have seven kids.

So we have, the oldest is Hannah, then we got Junior, Kendail Junior, Kiera, Thomas, Braden and Kennedy and Jolene.

- I have three biologically.

He has two biologically.

We've adopted two together over the years.

Kiera was four years ago, and then Jolene was like a couple weeks ago.

- [Narrator 1] Jessica and Kendail McBride have always had a heart for kids, and together they've made a home for them too.

It started with their son, Kiera, who was placed with them and later adopted through kinship care.

- Kiera was going through foster care through my grandmother, which she didn't wanna do long term.

Well, she didn't wanna adopt.

She kept him, she was like, I don't wanna do adoption.

And him and my son Kendail Junior were like best friends at the time.

So they come to me like, Hey, we have Kiera, we want to get him adopted.

Do you want?

I'm like, that's a great idea 'cause I've always wanted to take in kids.

So it actually helped me into what we're doing now.

But yeah, he moved in with me.

He was 9 or 10.

So I've had him ever since.

I grew relationship with his family outside of.

So yeah, that's more like a kinship with him, like being able to be around family, his family that he's used to being with, like he's still gonna see his aunties here and there, hang out with his cousins, talk to his dad on a regular basis.

- [Narrator 1] With Kiera, there was a built-in connection that kinship care can offer.

But the McBride say they've tried to mirror this method in every experience with children and families they've had the opportunity to connect with.

- It might start as foster care, but it quickly turns into kinship, because I wanna like build a relationship with their family because I wanna know like how they were raised, and you know, like their background because we, of course, want to implement some of that into our life too.

We're not trying to take away from their normal everyday life.

Like with Jolene who we just adopted, like I was really close with like some of her family.

We still keep in contact just because I think that's so important.

- It's always safe for the parents to know like their kid is safe.

- Yeah.

- It's hard for your... You know, you lost your kid already, and then to know that they're with someone that's taking care of 'em, actually taking care of 'em.

So that's like the thing with us reaching out, talk to the parents, you know.

So they learned that, okay, my child is safe over there.

So it's always...

I mean, you don't like leaving parents in the dust.

Even if they're not going back home, they still wanna know their child is safe where they're at.

- You know, we're not trying to take anybody's family from them, we're just here to support, love, give them a good home, but also protect them and let them still have a relationship with their family if it's safe.

- It's gonna combat one of those ACEs that have happened.

And to be able to work with a child, to know their story, to tell their story, to honor it, to be able to see a piece of it, but sense, smells the familiarities of your community, the things when you're used to driving to school and back and what doesn't look the same, what can you do to put it back in so that you can make that transition a little easier and connect with a child and maintain the roots all at the same time.

I'm always like, could you just make sure to ask a kiddo like, what are the meals that are their favorites?

Or they remember as they're possibly even having to learn new foods.

- Kiera, this guy is 16 years old, loves sprinkles on his ice cream.

(Jessica chuckling) So she buys him sprinkles.

- His own container sprinkles.

- Container sprinkles so he can have his ice cream all the time, like.

But you know, that's something that they're familiar with.

Like consistency is big when it comes to like taking in another kid or bringing a kid in your home because they're not used to consistency.

And a lot of 'em, they break from that.

That brings on a lot of trauma because you don't know what their backgrounds come from.

So when you got consistency, it works perfect with the kids.

I mean, you can see 'em smiling.

You can see the happiness when they're able to rely on you.

- [Narrator 1] But with all the research, data, and personal experience like the McBride's, backing the benefits of kinship care, our team can't help but ask the question, why hasn't this been the go-to model from the start as opposed to traditional foster care methods where children are often placed with strangers.

I think we were just talking earlier where it's like it makes the most sense like to start with families, but that's not what we've historically done.

Why do you think that is?

- You know, I'm not quite sure how it couldn't have ever been.

In certain communities that is the plan, and you keep your families together.

I think we've all learned from mistakes that have been made along the way, in the work of child welfare and other fields as well.

- It's important to note that for many communities of color, kinship care is and has been the norm when it comes to children who are displaced.

But this hasn't always been represented when we look at state and federal data as it relates to the foster care system, with many taking in children informally, which doesn't offer the credit or resources that traditional foster care does.

- In Black and Brown communities specifically, kinship care is not a new concept.

It's something that has existed even informally for years.

I can even recall, you know, in my neighborhood that there were families that were impacted by different issues and concerns where there was a family member, a parent or caregiver that couldn't take care of their child, so they had other folks, whether it be fictive kin or actual blood kin that would step up.

- Culturally, we have been doing kinship care forever, right?

It's something that we've always done.

We don't believe that like children are orphans or they're parentless.

We believe that as a community, you step in.

We all take responsibility in raising our children, and that's something that we've done forever and it's something we continue to do.

They're never without parental figures, they're never without caregivers.

And the best way that we can do that is stepping in and caring for them.

- [Narrator 1] Sitting on a virtual call is Stormie Jacobs-Wakemup, the program manager at Michigan State University's kinship care resource center.

She identifies as Anishinaabe from the Little River Band of Odawa Indians, and is a kinship caregiver herself.

- My daughter is actually my cousin.

As a family, we step in and we take care of our own.

We take care of our family because we want them raised in the culture.

We want them with that sense of community, sense of belonging and self identity.

- [Narrator 1] When looking at the history of the United States Child welfare Services, there's longstanding disparity when examining which groups are more likely to have their families separated.

And for some, these factors can play a role in whether or not caregivers want to formally register through the system.

- I get it, right?

Like I go out to the kinship caregivers, I see them, I know what they're going through.

I know that they have to navigate the system that is challenging their relationship at all costs, right?

A kinship care provider can say to a worker like, Hey, I want X, Y, Z to happen, but then feel like I can't ask for X, Y, Z because what if they just take this kid away?

If you are a foster parent or a kinship caregiver of color, you are amazing.

You are dipping your toes into a system that was not built for you and you're protecting your family and your community, and I applaud that.

I think that's the best thing that we can do, because we see the disparities, we see what it is like for the child welfare system.

- Nobody could argue that in the past, if you look statistically, there was more Black and Brown children that were brought into care than any other race.

So the pieces of that and looking at how did that affect communities as a whole, how does that affect how communities as a whole want to take on or receive services, and what work do we have to do to undo some of the past that's been done.

And the biggest piece, number one is recognizing it and not making excuses for that.

- [Narrator 1] Historically, children of color have been disproportionately represented in the child welfare system, and Black and Native American families have long sat at the heart of this issue.

There's a myriad of factors, many of which lay up the root of systemic discrimination.

- When a family has lack of access to concrete or economic supports, or if there's a lack of stable housing, food insecurity, you know, the housing instability that we see in disenfranchised communities, sometimes our families are dismantled.

- Child welfare studies show the breaking up of Black families in America can be traced back to the earliest days of slavery.

And today, African American families are more likely to be investigated by child protective services when compared to other families.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services found from January, 2008 to June of 2017, Black children were placed in foster care at higher rates than White children even when both shared identical risk of future maltreatment in the home.

For native communities, the trauma of government intervention in families goes back generations.

Can you talk with me just a little bit about the history there between indigenous people and the child protective system here in the US?

- So for decades, even probably like a century native children have been removed from their homes with no reasoning or a false reasoning or flat out lies.

We talk about the boarding school and children were forced to go to the boarding school because those were federal funded programs.

And so the more children they had in there, the more funding they got.

And so it kind of flourished.

And it was a business at this point, - [Narrator 1] Investigations by the US Department of the Interior, say Native American boarding schools held the primary goal of cultural genocide, removing and reprogramming children by destroying native ways of life.

- And so children were removed from their homes, from their reservation, from their families, their communities.

And the goal in that was for assimilation, was for them to no longer be Native American, no longer have that identity, that sense of culture, that sense of belonging, but for them to just be humans, them just to be American.

So in order to strip all of that identity, what they did was they used all forms of abuse, physical, emotional, sexual, mental abuse, as well as relocating them to different areas.

So now they've completely pulled them from their environment and now they're experiencing large amounts of abuse on a daily basis.

From a cultural standpoint, from our childbearing practices, we've never believed in any form of abuse for our children.

So then for them to go from one extreme to the opposite was detrimental.

And it's been generations of working that out of our bloodlines.

They were still being taken in the 60s without cause and forced into these assimilation camps.

Essentially the boarding schools, that's my grandparents age, that's my parents' generation.

- [Narrator 1] Today, the Indian Child Welfare Act, also known as ICWA aims to protect Indian children and support stability and security of tribes and families.

Recognizing that tribes have sovereign rights and legal powers with respect to their children.

- Law and policy is just starting to maybe pick up that, right, starting to see that we need to do something, not just the tribes handling it themselves, but we need to also help and support them the best we can.

And ICWA didn't come nicely.

IWA was hard fought for, and it's still hard fought for.

It's up on the Supreme Court chopping block every chance it gets.

So the work that we're doing is great, but we have to remember that it's continuous and Kinship is part of that.

Kinship Care is built into ICWA because it's built into our culture and what we believe in our childbearing practices.

- [Narrator 1] When asked if native communities in Michigan would benefit from the updated Kinship Care resources, Stormie says yes, but the change may not find impact with everyone.

- The new licensing requirements that came through tribal member families, if they fall into that category, then they for sure can reach out to those services and resources.

Kinship has always been protected under ICWA.

So we've had a lot of those safety nets already.

A lot of our tribal communities are licensed through their tribe, but if they choose to go into a different route and enter into kinship caregiving through a foster care setting, then they do have those same resources available to them.

- [Narrator 1] Overall state leaders say changes to Michigan's system will make becoming a licensed kinship caregiver easier.

But in order to reap the financial resources, families of all backgrounds do have to formally register with the state.

And for many, that's still a tough decision.

- Oftentimes, it's greatly in the benefit of the family to go through the licensing process and the subsidies that are available to a child if they're in formal care.

And those pieces of that.

- For families who may come from communities who have been mistreated, you know, by the system before who say, well, I'm already doing this, like I already have my nephew living with me and we're, you know, doing just fine.

I don't wanna risk anything.

By kind of going through that process, what would you say to folks who might be feeling that way?

- I think the first thing I would always say is, rightfully so.

Like, sit in that space for a minute and acknowledge that like rightfully so and I could understand that.

And to educate them in a way that they can understand that what parts of system change could enrich their lives now.

For a grandparent that adopted their grandchild or took guardianship, you may not be able to go back and receive those subsidies now.

And that is an unfortunate space that there isn't a lot of control that we have in that as a system.

But what is available here at D.A.

Blodgett St. John's, we have a virtual support group on Facebook that they can join that is solely for caregivers.

There's no workers aside from our team who are also kinship caregivers themselves.

They can seek support, find resources, ask questions.

Sometimes they qualify for things they had no clue.

So it takes a space where they're welcomed in to be able to go, okay, guard down a little.

Let's see what we can do for your family.

There's also the Kinship Care Resource Center out of Michigan State University.

You can ask questions whether you're formal or informal as a caregiver.

- So if you don't feel like you have that trust or you can reach out to who you're already working with, reach out to us at the MSUKCRC because we can help, we can be a listening ear.

We can help provide resources, even explain some of the systems that you're dealing with if you're not familiar with them.

I welcome any champions in that work because we need it.

- There is not a child or not many if that that wouldn't want a connection to their community over going to an unknown home.

- That's what drives me in this work because I want the system to be better for everybody.

It's going to get better because we're going to make it better.

- [Narrator 2] Thanks for watching.

You can find this episode and others online at wgvu.org/mutuallyinclusive or by visiting our YouTube page.

But don't forget to follow WGVU on Facebook to keep up with everything happening here in West Michigan.

Thank you for helping us be mutually inclusive.

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